Archive for
March, 2010

MORE CITIZEN ACTIONS PLANNED THROUGH WEEKEND: Unprecedented TEA Party & Grassroots Coalition Aligns to ‘Kill The Bill’; Rally Saturday at Capitol, Other Events Across Country

WASHINGTON, March 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — An unprecedented coalition of grassroots and “tea party” groups is launching the final push before a possible vote by the House. Coming together under the auspices of the American Grassroots Coalition, various events held by different groups will be coordinated, including a noon rally at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a candlelight vigil and “virtual vigil” leading up to the vote.

“All of the groups have a mutual goal — to band together to communicate the frustration of the people and demand the termination of this health bill legislation,” said Jennifer Hulsey, Co-Founder of American Grassroots Coalition.

The past two weeks has seen the “Take The Town Halls To Washington” initiative get nearly 1,000 people to DC to meet with approximately 30 Congressman. The event culminated in the rally at Taft Park near the Capitol, which was sponsored by Tea Party Express. Over 1,500 people assembled to rally against the health care bill and then meet with their representatives.

While the Capitol Police diverted the stage and sound for the park rally, grass roots activists innovated and used a park bench and bull horn to get their message to the attendees!

The following actions are planned for the next 72 hours:

Calling campaigns to the House by constituents to vote no on the bill

“Talk to Washington” health care town halls in Mississippi, Pennsylvania and other states

Nationwide “Virtual Vigil” on BlogTalk radio sponsored by DoctorsandPatients.org

Candlelight vigil around the Capitol on Saturday night

Featured speakers at the Washington, D.C. Rally on Saturday will include:

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN)

Congressman Tom Price (GA)

Congressman Joe Wilson (SC)

Congressman Phil Gingrey (GA)

State Senator Judson Hill (GA)

Actor & Activist Jon Voight

Dr. Milton Wolf, Barack Obama‘s second cousin who opposes Obamacare

Colin Hanna, Let Freedom Ring

Jim Martin, 60 Plus

Phil Kerpen, Americans for Prosperity

Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity

Andrew Langer, Institute for Liberty

Kathryn Serkes, Doctor Patient Medical Association

Mark Skoda, Memphis Tea Party

Amy Kremer, Tea Party Express

Jennifer Hulsey, American Grassroots Coalition

FreedomWorks Representative

Ben Cunningham, Founder of the Tennessee Tax Revolt

Darla Dawald, Grassfire / Resistnet

BACKGROUND

Grassroots activists everywhere have worked to inform themselves, notify their representatives of their objections and take action in the form of rallies, meetings and calls into those representatives. Individual groups have worked to stop the health care legislation while coordinating with each other to amplify their message and their efforts.

Amy Kremer, of Tea Party Express, commented, “We had a great rally this week in DC and people have overwhelmed us with their desire to do it again on Saturday. With so many people concerned about this legislation and the ability to come to Washington on a weekend, we are working within this coalition to expand the Code Red rally participation.”

The coalition of Tea Party and grassroots organizations and leadership is committed to changing the dynamics of this legislative process. “The Democratic led Congress is using procedural and legislative rules to ignore the overwhelming opposition to this,” said Mark Skoda of Memphis Tea Party. “The will of the American people is being subverted by these actions and the grass roots activists who make up this coalition are focusing their energy to kill the bill.”

The coalition includes:

60 Plus

Alexandria Tea Party

American Grassroots Coalition

Americans for Prosperity

Americans for Tax Reform

Cincinnati Tea Party

Cincinnati 9/12 Project

Concerned Women for America

Constitutional Sovereignty Alliance

Constitutional Tea Party

Doctor Patient Medical Association

Family Research Council

FreedomWorks

Grassfire/Resistnet

Heartland Institute

Institute for Liberty

Let Freedom Ring

Memphis Tea Party

Mom for America

National Center for Public Policy Research

National Taxpayer’s Union

Nationwide Tea Party Coalition

New Jersey Tea Party Coalition

Northern Virginia 912

Richmond Patriots

Take the Town Halls to Washington

Tea Party Express

Tea Party Patriots Live Radio Show

Washington DC Tea Party

We the People of Pennsylvania

For further information or to register and participate or assist others to come to Washington, DC, please check the above websites where details will be posted and updated regularly throughout the next 48 hours and http://www.americangrassrootscoalition.org/.

This is it. The whole ball game this weekend. As of right now, multiple sources are reporting that the dems have their 216 votes. but the numbers change from moment to moment as fence-sitters wait for a fat enough bribe from the president and house leadership before flipping to a ‘yes’, while others give in to the will of their constituents – and even possibly whatever remaining shreds of decency and integrity they may still possess – and flip to ‘no’.

Tomorrow (Saturday 3/20), our lying, conniving, leftist scumbag man-child of a president will meet with the entire house democrat caucus to further pressure them into voting this massive, economy-crushing, freedom destroying, smoke-and-mirrors-filled legislative sham into law. We absolutely must keep the pressure on from our side. If we do, we CAN still stop this.

Tomorrow, big ‘Kill The Bill’ rally in DC with Michele Bachmann:

Time: 12 Noon

Place: Senate Park, across from the Capitol, Washington, DC

Bachmann to Speak at
“Kill the Bill” Rally in Washington, DC

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will join conservative activists from across the country in a rally at the U.S. Capitol Saturday, March 20 at 12 pm. With a vote scheduled over the weekend on the Democrat health care proposal, voters from around the country are joining together to voice their opposition to the nearly trillion dollar health care bill.

“This is the final push, and the Democrat’s last ditch effort to push through the most unpopular legislation in years!”, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said.

Speakers will include actor Jon Voight, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Steve King and various Tea Party groups and activists.

BTW, Bart Stupak? Tired of hearing about him. He’s on Greta right now…cant trust this motherfucker as far as I can throw him. He’s a yes, mark my words.

Yesterday the White House circulated a memo by pollster Joel Benenson. It was designed to create momentum for Obamacare by convincing wayward House Democrats that support for the President’s plan has been building since the State of the Union. As with everything else that comes out of the White House on health care these days, the memo is nothing but pure fantasy.

This Tuesday, Gallup released its latest poll showing that by a 48%-45% margin Americans would tell their representative in Congress to vote against President Obama’s health plan. Compare that to the last time Gallup asked the question in January, Americans supported the President’s plan 49%-46%. That’s a net six point loss in support for the President’s plan since the State of the Union. That is momentum. Against Obamacare.

And Gallup isn’t alone. The Associated Press released a poll this week showing that 68% of Americans believe the President and Congressional Democrats shouldn’t pass their health care plan without Republican support.Â “Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan,” Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen add in today’s Washington Post, “A solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan.”

Yesterday was particularly tough for the President’s plan. First, the White House underwhelmed the Democratic Caucus in a presentation of the new (still unwritten) reconciliation bill. Then, the Senate Parliamentarian killed the Democrats favored procedural path for passage by signaling he would rule that President Obama must sign the original Senate bill into law before the Senate could act on the President’s new reconciliation package. Finally, the Associated Press reported that House leaders have abandoned all hope of finding language to satisfy Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-MI) concerns that the Senate bill funds abortion. By the end of the day, the leftist firedoglake site had dropped its count of committed House Democrats for passage to 189 (Speaker Pelosi needs 216 for passage).

With the loss of Stupak and his 7-12 member caucus opposed to taxpayer-funded-abortions, Speaker Pelosi will have to find the remaining dozen plus votes from the ranks of cost conscious Blue Dog Democrats. For example, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) who voted against the House bill in the fall explained at the time: “According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House health care bill will actually increase federal health care spending over the long term, while proposals being considered by the Senate would have a net decrease.” But according to a new CBO score of the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve (the one with the Cornhusker Kickback), it actually increases health care spending. And the reconciliation bill only make things worse, since, among other increased spending measures, President Obama “fixed” the Cornhusker Kickback not by eliminating the new spending, but by extending it to all 50 states.

With no votes piling up, andÂ “yes” votes materializing, the Democratic plans to shove Obamacare down the throats of the American people are becoming more and more desperate. This Monday, the House Budget Committee will begin markup on the new reconciliation bill even though actual legislative text does not exist for it yet. The Democrats plan to pass a shell of a bill through the appropriate committees so that the Rules Committee can then substitute the bill that is being drafted completely behind closed doors by the White House and Senate and Democrat leaders.

Politico reports that despite the Parliamentarian’s initial verbal ruling, they will press on with their Slaughter Rule plan to pass the Senate bill without voting on it. NRO’s Yuval Levin quips: “Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesnâ€™t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it.”

But President Obama’s progressive base is way past rational thought when it comes to health care. They want it passed at any cost. And as George Will pointed out yesterday, the very essence of progressivism sublimates the democratic process to the rule of experts in Washington. No one can say if this bill will finally pass, but if it does, it is abundantly clear that our republican form of government will be permanently damaged by it.

As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled “Transition Green” shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

Then in late summer, just after he created the task force, these groups produced “Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy.” This document makes repeated references to “overfishing,” but doesn’t once reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias by playing fast and loose with “facts,” in attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

That same tunnel vision, in which recreational angling and commercial fishing are indiscriminately lumped together as harmful to the resource, has persisted with the task force, despite protests by the angling industry.

As more evidence of collusion, the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force’s recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February. Fishing advocates had no idea that this was coming.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the New York Times reported on Feb. 12 that “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”

Another day, another stream of health care fantasy from the White House. A quick look at two health care events from yesterday, one in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and the other in Tawas City, Michigan, clearly exposes the yawing gap between the Obama administration’s health care rhetoric and cold hard legislative reality. First in Glenside, President Barack Obama turned up the volume on his already tired “final push” for health care reform. In addition to the usual litany of false claims about the legislation in Congress (in fact, you don’t get to keep your doctor, it isn’t paid for, it doesn’t reduce costs) President Obama also repeated his new line from his doctors-in-lab-coats address last week:

We have now incorporated almost every single serious idea from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care … Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill…

But, as we pointed out last week, there is one not-so-minor difference between the Senate bill and the President’s new proposal: the Senate bill actually exists. Now, Democrats may be telling their conservative counterparts that they will have reconciliation legislative text in front of the Budget Committee by tomorrow, but don’t hold your breath. The “fixes” that the White House is promising wavering House Democrats they will make all sound easy at first glance: 1) scaling back the tax on high-end health insurance policies; 2) closing the Medicare D loophole; 3) boosting insurance subsidies; 4) increasing Medicaid payments; and 5) fixing the Cornhusker Kickback. But when you take a second look, you see that all of these “fixes” will cost more money. Just look at the Cornhusker Kickback which the President chose to address, not by taking away Nebraska’s special Medicaid payments, but by extending those extra Medicaid payments to every state! Every single item in the President’s proposal either increases spending or reduces new revenues. And he didn’t put forward any way to pay for them. If passing health reform were as easy as giving away free candy, Obamacare would be law already. Finding a way to pay for all these fixes is going to be just as difficult as every earlier effort to pay for this bill. So don’t expect any solutions anytime soon.

And we haven’t even mentioned “abortion” yet, which brings us to Tawas City where Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) hosted his own health care townhall. Now the Associated Press headline may read “Stupak: Health bill abortion fight can be resolved” but then the AP actually reports “Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week…” In other words, there is no agreement yet. And what kind of timeline is Stupak looking at for such an agreement? WJRT reports: “[Stupak]‘s confident a bill will pass sometime this year.” “Sometime this year” is a bit longer of a timeframe than the White House deadline of next Thursday. But even more importantly, look at the process Stupak suggests for final passage: “According Stupak, until the House and the Senate bills and the president’s proposals become one piece of legislation, health care will remain in limbo.” Considering that everyone agrees that abortion cannot be fixed in reconciliation, Stupak’s position is a total rejection of the White House’s current plan to have the House pass the Senate bill now on the promise that the Senate might come back and try and fix it sometime in the future. Stupak clearly wants “one piece of legislation,” and the only way to accomplish that is to scrap the current Senate bill and start over.

In response to this story by AP ‘reporter’ Christina Hoag, in which she rails against alleged racist incidents at college campuses but fails to mention that the perpetrators of at least two of them were members of the minority groups themselves:

—–

The author of this reprehensible piece of ‘journalism’, Christina Hoag, should be ashamed of herself for her blatant and intentional – since there’s no way she couldn’t know the whole story – misrepresentation of the types of situations she claims to be reporting on. In almost all cases, the offending item (noose/swastika/spray-painted racial slur, etc…) has been shown to have been placed by a member of the target minority themselves as a way to garner sympathy for their ‘plight’.

Ms. Hoag won’t tell you, for example, that the UC San Diego noose was planted by a (unspecified) minority female, while the ‘compton cookout‘ was organized by a black man.

Why? Because it won’t fit the narrative of Hoag and her ilk that the white man is the biggest single perpetrator of racism among us.

The fact, glaringly obvious to anyone capable of honest analysis, is that nothing is further from the truth.

The overwhelming majority of racism in this country emanates from the very people who cry about it the loudest….who also happen to be the very same people who view every person and every situation in terms of race. It’s always race first. Before character. Before merit. Before accomplishment.

It is a disgraceful situation that will continue to tear our country apart unless the people – you know, us - and our elected representatives develop the spine to say ‘No More”. And, of course, until responsible news organizations throw agenda-driven hacks like Ms. Hoag out onto the street where they belong.

On March 5th of last year, firefighter Travis Ulerick, of Dublin, Indiana, introduced President Barack Obama at a White House summit on health care. Upon hearing the first rumblings of dissent about the President’s plan, Ulerick tells USA Today he thought at the time: "I definitely think it’s going to have to be a huge consensus." It’s now 12 months later, and the only consensus that exists among the American people is strong opposition to the President’s health care plan.The White House, however, is now completely uninterested in establishing a consensus for their health care plan before they jam it through Congress. Today, in a speech from the White House, President Barack Obama will urge Congress to move swiftly to pass his health care plan by implementing a legislative tactic that can be used to pass legislation that has failed to gain broad support among the American people. It’s known asÂ reconciliation.

Reconciliation has been used in the past, but only for procedural reasons, not because the underlying policy change was unable to muster 60-vote support. So, for example, the 1996 welfare reform law signed by President Bill Clinton was passed through reconciliation, but it also ended up getting 78 votes in the Senate (28 of them from Democrats). President Ronald Reagan also passed seven bills through reconciliation, but every single one of those bills passed through a Democratically-controlled House and won Senate votes from both parties. Never has reconciliation been used to pass any bill on purely partisan lines.

In an attempt to provide some political cover for his nakedly-partisan health care push, President Obama released a letter yesterday identifying "four policy priorities" that "I am exploring." Specifically he is "open" to: 1) random undercover investigations of health care providers that receive reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid; 2) $50 million in cash for states that reform medical malpractice laws in ways the White House approves of; 3) increased spending on Medicaid; and 4) language that clearly allows Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to qualify as health insurance.

The White House has not yet released any legislative language for any of these "policy priorities." In fact, his letter does not even promise that whatever legislation the White House does eventually offer will contain language on each of these issues. He only says he is "exploring" the issues. This is beyond a sham of bipartisanship. Details matter. The American people must be allowed to see real legislative language and they must be allowed the time to read and comment on it before any votes are taken.

Most importantly, simply adding so-called conservative ideas to the bill does not change the fundamental direction of the proposal. The bills before Congress, including the Presidentâ€™s new additions, would still result in a massive shift of power over health care financing and delivery of care to Washington politicians and bureaucrats. The public has spoken, and it does not want a federal take over of health care.

Julia Denton of Yorktown, Virginia, another of the Obama administration’s hand-picked March 5 health summit attendees, tells USA Today: "The legislation as proposed is so long and tough to read that people are afraid of it. Health care is such a highly personal issue. I cannot see how anyone will win if unpopular reforms are forced through over vigorous opposition." Denton is 100% correct. The American people should not have unpopular health care reform forced down their throats in the face of strong bipartisan opposition. At a bare minimum they should have the opportunity to see actual legislation from the White House and be allowed to speak to their members about it while they are home in their districts over Easter break.

Conservatives should continue to press the Administration and leaders in Congress for bipartisan solutions that are based on elements of common ground, including letting states take the lead on health reform, tackling the tax treatment of health insurance, sensible insurance market reforms, and an honest commitment to fixing existing health care programs that the government already controls.

For real bipartisanship to work, the President must set aside the current proposals that are based on consolidating power over health care in Washington and instead embrace solutions that would give individuals and families more control over health care dollars and decisions. Simply adjusting the magnitude of the existing proposals or adding so-called conservative provisions does not change this fundamental direction.

The U.S. Senate passed Majority Leader Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill last Wednesday by a 70-28 vote. Reid introduced the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” (HIRE Act), S.AMDT. 3310, to address the issue of jobs and the economy, but disappointed immigration reformers by leaving out any mandate that jobs created by the bill go to U.S. workers. The bill has two major tax provisions, an exemption from payroll taxes for employers who hire new employees in 2010 and a $1,000 tax credit for employers who keep those employees for at least 52 weeks. Unfortunately, the bill does not require that these new workers be legal or that employers use E-Verify to confirm their work authorization.

A recently released report has revealed that illegal aliens are using fraudulent methods to obtain employment with employers who are enrolled in E-Verify the online, electronically operated system that allows employers to confirm that their new hires have established their authorization to work in the United States. The report was conducted by Westat, a Maryland-based social science research firm under contract with the federal government. According to Westat, approximately half of illegal aliens run through E-Verify are inaccurately found to be work authorized, primarily due to identity theft.

The nation’s top civil rights prosecutor last week blatantly misrepresented FBI crime statistics by claiming that hate crimes against Latinos are on the rise. Mr. Thomas Perez, who took over the Justice Department’s civil rights unit for the Obama Administration, said last Wednesday, “The data and my own experience is that hate crimes are on the rise: Hate crimes against every group are on the rise.” According to the Seattle Intelligencer, Perez then expressed particular concern that hate crimes directed at Latinos are on the rise and that Hispanic leaders and organizations are receiving threats, in his opinion, “because they had the audacity to stand up for immigration reform.” (Id.).

Last week, President Obama attempted to kick-start the stalled health care debate by offering his own proposal to reform the U.S. health care system. While the White House states that the proposal “incorporates the work the House and the Senate have done and adds additional ideas from Republican members of Congress,” the president’s plan is more akin to a list of ideas rather than actual legislative text. (Proposal). Importantly, the White House proposal is completely silent with respect to the immigration-related issues FAIR and other groups had raised concerning the House and Senate-passed health care bills.

On Thursday, February 25, Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) introduced the “Reinstatement of Personal Responsibility for Immigrants Act” (H.R. 4708). H.R. 4708 would reverse several troubling changes that were made to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) when President Obama signed the SCHIP Reauthorization bill (H.R. 2) into law in February 2009. Specifically, the Reinstatement of Personal Responsibility for Immigrants Act would require applicants for taxpayer-subsidized benefits under SCHIP to be verified through a well-established verification system that requires applicants to present documentation to establish both their identity and citizenship. In addition, the legislation would reinstate the five-year waiting period before legal immigrants could access benefits under SCHIP. Finally, the bill would require that legal immigrants who apply for SCHIP have their eligibility verified through the proven Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system. H.R. 4708 has already garnered four co-sponsors, including Reps. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), Dean Heller (R-NV), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Walter Jones (R-NC).

State Bills Would Require School Districts to Collect Data on Foreign-Born Students

Last week, committees in the Oklahoma and Arizona state legislatures passed landmark bills that would require school districts to collect information on the number of foreign-born students enrolled in their schools.

Having failed to convince the country that we should reorder one-sixth of our economy (health care) in one fell swoop, liberals in the Administration and Congress are now doubling down and moving on to the next big thing. This time itâ€™s the transformation of everything, through climate legislation. One could almost stand agape, admiring the boldness of the overreach, were not so much prosperity at stake.

The latest attempt to force the U.S. economy to turn away from readily available, affordable fuels and leaving it to the tender mercies of untried, experimental and expensive technologies is a bipartisan effort by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). A legislative package from them, according to The Washington Post on Saturday, would individually cap how much traditional energy the main pillars of the American economy would be able to use. This would of course cripple our economy and threaten our prosperity. Any doubts about how broad and deep this effort is are dispelled by reading the following paragraph in the Post:

According to several sources familiar with the process, the lawmakers are looking at cutting the nation’s greenhouse gas output by targeting, in separate ways, three major sources of emissions: electric utilities, transportation and industry.

The reason the Senators could not act through their preferred vehicle, a â€œcap-and-tradeâ€ scheme that would put an across-the-economy ceiling on the use of traditional sources of fuel such as coal, oil and natural gasâ€”above which companies using these fuels would have to pay for extra rightsâ€”is that the whole edifice of global warming is now falling apart.

It is collapsing with such rapidity that it is worth pausing from time to time to take stock.

The foundations of such edifice rest on a single assumption. This hypothesisâ€”one that drove many people, even some reasonable ones, to contemplate upending the world as we know it â€” is that that traditional fuels will have cataclysmic consequences on the environment because they emit gases that make the world too hot.

The authority to turn this assumption into fact rested largely on a U.N. document -Â the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeâ€™s 2007 report -Â which declared climate change â€œunequivocalâ€ and its man-made origin â€œvery likely.â€ The purpose of the IPCC report was to turn hypothesis into fact.

The reason Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman had to turn away from cap-and-trade, and target industries individually, is that the idea of an iron-clad scientific consensus is now being revealed to be a bit, shall we say, exaggerated. The IPCCâ€™s turning of hypothesis into fact now looks less like the scientific process and more like the magician you paid $50 an hour to pull flowers out of hats at your daughterâ€™s birthday.

The first scales began to come off the global warming edifice in November, when emails from the University of East Anglia in the UK revealed how scientists at that key global research center had tried to suppress the opinion of peers who dissented from their view and hid evidence that countered the theory of man-made global warming.

Then the U.N.â€™s Copenhagen summit that was supposed to produce a global agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol fell apart in December, with the key countries refusing to hobble their own economies for the sake of science that was less and less there.

Then last Friday, the news pages of The Wall Street Journal published yet one more devastating story on the IPCC and its hapless chairman, Rajendra Pachauri. The front page story detailed how inconclusive science, political pressure and shoddy administration all led to the Cassandra-like pronouncements of the IPCC report. Imagine that: politicians putting pressure on scientists to come up with theories that would vastly add to their regulatory and taxing powers.

Things have gotten so desperate that Al Gore himself had to come out of seclusion and pen a piece for The New York Times. On Saturday he implored readers that all these cascading events didnâ€™t amount to a hill of beans. The article was vintage Gore. Letâ€™s say it was not restrained. Hereâ€™s Gore on what will happen if we fail to act now:

Our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands.

The former Vice President and failed presidential candidate was so exercised he even took a jab at FOX, apparently blaming it for the troubles global warming is experiencing: â€œSome news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment.”

Alas for Gore, Pachauri, et al., the climate alarums are working less and less not because of FOX, but because the alarmists overreached. Even an embarrassed U.N. was forced to announce Saturday that an independent board of scientists will be appointed to review the workings of the IPCC.

Unfortunately, climategate and IPCCgate have not put a dent on the Obama Administrationâ€™s plan to (mis)use the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2, and thereby the companies that power our nation. Its Administrator Lisa Jackson was out in front of Congress last week again repeating the same shibboleths on a scientific consensus on global warming. This should make us all wonder if stopping global warming really was ever the end game.

As for Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, their reaction is to slap carbon controls on individual sectors of the economy separately, instead of setting a national target through cap-and-trade. The foundations for doing cap-and-trade have been torn asunder. Our research shows that cap-and-trade would be a $1.9 trillion tax on businesses over eight years, more expensive than the Vietnam War, Hurricane Katrina or the New Deal. But taxing the different pillars of our economy individually would be just as economically suicidal.

Sen. Kerry told the Post last week about his legislative effort, â€œWhat people need to understand about this bill is this really is a jobs bill, an economic transformation for America, an energy independence bill and a health/pollution-reduction bill that has enormous benefits for the country,â€ Kerry said. Notice he said nothing about global warming or climate change, the reason we were supposed to take this long walk off a short pier. Notice also he didnâ€™t say it was about handing the political class the reins of the private economy. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman want electric power to be first on the economic chopping block. Previous analysis of similarly severe carbon cuts project electricity prices will rise over 70 percent, even after adjusting for inflation. Not only is this a nightmare for household utility bills, the higher cost will hit consumers over and over since businesses must pass on their higher costs as well.